Before the Sleepover
by William Easley
Summary: Warning: Deals with serious issues and involves violence. Wendy's never attended a sleepover, and Mabel's invited her to one - but before it starts, the two girls have a serious conversation about romance and the harsh realities of high-school relationships. Not one of my funny ones, folks!


_Note: This isn't a funny one, and it deals with both some serious issues and with violence. Be warned. . . ._

 **Before the Sleepover**

"Wendy," Mabel asked as they carried the supplies—sleeping bag, junk food, portable DVD player, assortment of chick flicks, stuffed animals, all the necessities—upstairs to the attic, "could I ask you a real personal question?"

"Sure, Mabes," Wendy said, closing the door behind her. She moved her load over to the table that Dipper used as a desk. "If in return you'll tell me how to behave at one of these things. Never been to a sleepover before."

As she put her two bags of treats on her old bed, Mabel blinked and shook her head in disbelief. "Wah-wah-what? You gotta be kidding! No sleepovers ever? Not even when you were, you know, ten and eleven and twelve?"

"Nope," Wendy said, setting down the DVD player. "Bein' the only girl in a house with four guys kept me kinda busy, and I guess I never really learned girlyness, you know. Only girl I ever was really friendly with is Tambry, and when we were sleepover age, she was in love with her phone. Then lately she's been crazy over Robbie, and we never have time to talk about guys and stuff. So I missed out. Hey, dude, you think the others will feel, like, weird with me here an' all? I mean 'cause I'm older?"

"Phssst!" Mabel replied, with a dismissive air-slap of her hand. "They'll be thrilled to have an experienced girl to talk to!"

Wendy laughed. "Hey, c'mon, do I really have that kind of reputation?"

Mabel plopped down on Dipper's bed, kicking her feet. "Well—you _have_ had lots of boyfriends and broken up with them. I'm sure everybody will want tips on how to get 'em and get rid of 'em."

With a sigh, Wendy sat next to Mabel on the foot of Dipper's bed. At the moment he was over at Fiddleford's, where his great-uncle Stanford was debriefing him about the confrontation with the Horroracle he'd had, and later Dipper planned to spend the night in Mabel's room—since the attic was so large, and since he couldn't stand the sleepovers, this summer they traded off rooms on sleepover nights. "Goin' with guys and breakin' up with them, huh? You want the truth, it's not exactly fun, Mabes," Wendy said. "But what personal question did you want to ask me?"

Mabel looked down and fiddled with her sweater, a midnight blue with a smiling yellow crescent moon. "Umm . . . well, you know . . . you and Dipper?"

"Aw, you already know the story," Wendy said. "We're good friends. Until Dip gets to be, I dunno, seventeen, eighteen, and then we'll see. We _like_ each other a lot, but as far as love goes—"

"It goes right to my brobro's head!" Mabel said. "He's cray-cray over you!" She retracted her arms into her sweater sleeves and waved them for emphasis. "Cray-cray!"

To Mabel's surprise, Wendy just shrugged. "Yeah, right now he might be. These feelings come and go, Mabel. Can't tell what it'll be like as he gets older."

"I don't think he'll change," Mabel said, popping her hands back out of her sleeves. "All year long he wore your trapper hat. Even when kids in school made fun of him for it. You know, on hot days and all. He never ever took it off. Dipper doesn't change easily, Wendy. I know him."

With a smile, Wendy said, "Well, between us girls, Mabel, I hope he doesn't. I'm really gettin' to like him more and more, and I'd hate to be disappointed in a couple-three years."

"I don't think anything can shake him, but, well, what about you?" Mabel asked, a little apprehensively. "What if you find your dream guy here while we're down in Piedmont?"

"Not gonna happen," Wendy assured her firmly. "I swore an oath to Dipper."

Frowning, Mabel said, "Then you're not gonna have any romance in high school at all? You're a junior next year—"

"No-o-t exactly," Wendy said.

Mabel did an elaborate double take. "Say _what_ , sistah?"

With another shrug, Wendy confessed, "I'm still technically a sophomore. I failed a couple classes and have to make up the credits—and I refuse to go to summer school, 'cause that's when you and Dipper are here, and I gotta hang with my homies, right? So this fall I'll be in mostly junior classes, but I'll have sophomore math and history to make up. If I manage to pass 'em by December, then I'll be a junior. Prob'ly graduate a year late, though. Hey, don't look so upset! I'm not. I'm not stupid, you know, just lazy. Dipper wants me to buckle down, so I'll try. But as far as romance goes, I've flat-out had it with high-school boys."

"Ooh! You had a tragic love! You gotta dish!" Mabel said, leaning forward eagerly.

Wendy shook her head, then gave Mabel a long look and sighed. "You and Dip start high school this fall. You'll be fourteen. I guess right about now somebody ought to tell you the hard facts of high-school life." She lowered her voice. "But Mabes, this has to be just between us two. You can't tell anybody. Not Grenda and Candy and 'specially not Pacifica, OK? And most especially of all, don't say a word to Dipper."

Quietly, Mabel said, "I won't."

"Not even by accident. I swear if you say one word to anybody, I—I can't be your friend any longer," Wendy said.

Mabel looked stricken. Her pupils swelled, and tears stood in her eyes. "I swear I won't, Wendy! Really! Trust me!"

Speaking quietly, Wendy said, "OK, OK, but it ain't a romantic story, and it's not pretty. First thing you gotta know about high school boys is a lot of 'em want to get all grabby with a girl, even on the first date."

With an uncertain smile, Mabel asked, "You mean like hugs and smooches?"

Wendy shook her head, her expression angry. "I mean they want to get their hands inside your bra and inside your pants, Mabel. Way too many of them. And to tell the truth, there's times when you kinda want to let them, you know? Hormones an' all, I guess. But I couldn't stand myself if I gave in and let 'em. Okay, here's the part you can't tell anybody, especially Dipper. It happened to me just before Christmas break last year, the week before my brothers and me all had to go into the woods for Apocalypse training."

"We already had the Apocalypse," Mabel pointed out.

Wendy gave a rueful grunt. "Yeah, well, tell that to my dad. Far's he's concerned, that was just the rehearsal. Anyways, school ended on a Wednesday and that evening a bunch of us were goin' to a movie and then hangin' out, you know? And my date was this guy named Hendry Steffasen. A junior. Football player, big guy. Kinda loud-mouthed and annoying, but it was only a date, right? So we go to the movies an' after that we had some sodas, and then Hendry—he was drivin' his older brother's van—dropped off Lee and Tricia—don't think you know her—and Robbie and Tambry in town and then was s'posed to drive me home. Only he didn't."

"What did he do?" Mabel asked, her eyes wide.

"Drove out to Crooked Creek 'cause he claimed he had to return something to somebody who lived out that way. But then on a lonely stretch, he pulled off the road and stopped behind some trees, and I knew right off what he was up to and told him to take me straight home." Wendy was silent for a few moments, her face turning red. "He tried to rape me, Mabel!"

Mabel put her hands to her face. "No!"

"He was big an' strong, and he had me pinned down in the passenger seat, an' when I wouldn't give in, he ripped my shirt and bra off me. I mean flat tore 'em off, left them in rags! And he started workin' on my belt buckle, but I tossed and turned and finally got my right arm free enough to hit him right in the face. By the way, you got to do that, aim for his nose and use the heel of your hand, not a fist. Break your fist if you hit somebody with that hard enough to hurt him. And if you do make a fist, always keep your thumb outside—what's the matter, Mabel?"

Mabel was crying. "Oh, Wendy, did he—did he hurt you? Did you get away?"

"He scratched me up and bloodied my nose, is all. Finally, I got out of the van. There I was topless, bleedin' some, bruised, my coat was still in the van, and it was like twenty freakin' degrees and the wind was freezin'. Hendry came out after me, mad as hell and with his own nose bleedin' and told me I might as well give up, 'cause he was gonna—you know. I didn't let him."

"What did you do?"

"Kicked his ass all around that van, twice. Left him face-down holdin' on to his crotch and screamin'. Grabbed my coat outa the van and went runnin' through the woods. He didn't even try to follow me."

"I'm so glad you got away!"

"Yeah, but man, it was rough. I had to walk six miles through the woods, at night, in the freezin' cold, to get to the Shack."

Mabel blinked. "Not home?"

Wendy shook her head. "My dad would've plain killed the guy if I'd gone home in that shape. Dad would've took his axe and climbed into his pickup and hunted the bastard down. So anyways, I get to the Shack about eleven, and Soos and Melody are still up and watchin' TV in the parlor, so I got Melody to let me inside and found my spare shirt from the shelf under the cash register—you know I work the register weekends and a couple evenings during the school year—and cleaned myself up in the women's room, best I could. Then Soos drove me home in the truck, but I wouldn't tell him who'd roughed me up, only that I was basically OK. Had him let me out a quarter mile from my house."

Wendy was looking angrier and angrier. "Well, I got home an' went in. Dad gave me a little hell about comin' in so late, but I told him the roads were bad in places. Said I had to walk in from the road 'cause our drive was icy and I fell—that was how my face got scratched, I told him. Got to my room before I took off my coat, 'cause I didn't want him wonderin' why I'd left in a red flannel shirt and was comin' home in a green one."

Mabel swallowed hard. "I'm so glad you were OK!"

"Uh-huh," Wendy said moodily. "Just wait for the rest of it, though. OK, in January I went back to school, right, and ol' Hendry was showin' round my bra! Tellin' all his buddies I was so hot for him I ripped it off myself and then after he left me so _dazed_ with _pleasure_ that I went off and forgot it!" Wendy clenched her hands. "And half the boys at school believed him!"

"What did you do?"

Savagely, Wendy said, "Kicked his ass again, out behind the gym! And that got me suspended for a week. Thank God for Mr. Halpers, the shop teacher. He broke it up and I made Hendry tell him why I was beatin' on him. But I asked Mr. Halpers not to tell about it, 'cause there was already too much gossip."

"Wendy! You should've had the guy arrested!"

"Ha! You think Blubs an' Durland would've believed me? Or would they have believed a freakin' football hero? It's rough, Mabes, an' it needs to be changed, but justice don't work the way you think it should. But I'm pretty sure Mr. Halpers told the Steffasens somethin' about it."

"Did they do something?"

"Oh, yeah," Wendy said sarcastically. "They took their poor little son outa Gravity Falls High and sent him to the private school over in Morris. An' when I got back from my suspension, everybody was hatin' on me 'cause he was such a good football player an' it was my fault he left!"

"That's awful."

"Yeah, I stayed mad as hell for a couple months. That's one reason I failed the classes." Wendy shook her head and sighed. "I gave up on high-school boys, Mabel. Now they all say I'm a stuck-up bitch who thinks she's too good for any of them."

Mabel wiped her eyes and said, "I see why Dipper can't know any of this."

Wendy had held it together until she saw Mabel's tears, and then she sniffled herself. She gave Mabel a kind of teary smile. "Yeah, see, that's why Dipper's important to me. I mean, he's not like them. He's smart and funny and brave—and he doesn't pressure me or grab me. With Dipper, I really wouldn't mind some cuddling, you know, but I will be damned if I let anybody say I'm leading on a kid younger'n me."

"Aw, Wendy!" Mabel protested. "When Grunkle Stan threw the retro dance, everybody thought you and Dipper were so cute together!"

"Yeah, but only 'cause they thought I was just foolin' around with Dip, makin' him feel good. One of the guys I danced with—I just danced with the few I can halfway stand, by the way—told me 'You're sure makin' that little guy happy.' And they all thought I was at the dance 'cause of them, not Dipper. Truth is, only reason I even danced with them was so's they wouldn't smart off to him about it. But don't let Dipper know that, either, OK?"

"Well, of course not!" Mabel said. "And about waiting until the age thing won't matter so much? I think Dipper will let you set the pace, Wendy. He more than loves you. He adores you!"

"Yeah, funny, couple of days ago I thought he was gonna break up with me because of that letter he wrote when he thought he might die. But you know what? He offered to let me out of our promise not because he wanted to, but 'cause he was tryin' to protect me." She chuckled. "When it sounded like he wanted to call it quits, that hurt me so much I knew I couldn't let him go! So I kinda set him straight, I think. We're back on track now."

"Good for you!" Mabel said.

Wendy shrugged. "Well, we'll still have to take it slow and a day at a time. 'Course everybody in town would give Dipper a lot of crap if they thought he was really my boyfriend, so he's not. Not officially, and not for now, anyway. But I hope one day—when like you say, our ages don't matter so much—Mabel, straight up, he's the only boy that I think I could get romantic about. And of all the guys I've ever known, he's the only one I'd want to marry."

Mabel leaned over and hugged her. "Thank you for telling me that," she said. "I'd love it if you did! Then we'd be sisters!"

"Yeah, I didn't even think of that," Wendy teased. "And that's one thing I've always wanted—a sister! Okay, so I've never been to a girly-girly sleepover before. You tell me now, exactly what are we gonna do? Oh, but one thing, Mabes, I gotta insist on, or else I'm goin' home."

"What?" Mabel asked. "Anything. Just tell me."

"OK," Wendy said, and from her expression Mabel could tell she was deadly serious. "This is a deal-breaker. We don't play Truth or Dare."

Mabel smiled. "Well—OK. But that kinda screws with what I had planned. I really, really, really wanted to dare Pacifica to tell us about her love life! But—no Truth or Dare, Wendy."

"Thanks, little sister."

Mabel hugged herself and laughed. "Oh, man! I like the sound of that!"

The End


End file.
